Real Threat

The Real Threat To Human Rights in Iraq: the Insurgency
By Daniel G. Jennings
Self-proclaimed champions of “human rights” such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are doing the world and the Iraqi people a grave disservice by ignoring the real threat to human rights in Iraq: the insurgents.
Worse, these champions of humanity are accusing the one force standing between the Iraqi people and a slaughter on the scale of the Cambodian Killing Fields of the 1970s, which claimed three million lives; the US military. None of the major human rights organizations and their mouthpieces in the media have denounced the vicious tactics of the insurgents the kidnappings, the mass murders, the public beheadings, the bombings that kill and maim dozens of innocent people. Amnesty, Rights Watch and the rest seem unconcerned about the worst outbreak of barbarism in decades.
Yet these same organizations and their allies in the media and the peace movement are horrified by the silly antics of American soldiers at places like Abu Grahib. There is no evidence that anyone was actually tortured or killed at Abu Grahib but the defenders of human rights have labeled it an atrocity on the level of the Mai Lai Massacre. That’s silly, dishonest and dangerous.
To make matters worse most of the human rights champions are supporters of the one action that will lead to the worst human rights catastrophe since Pol Pot: the withdrawal of the US military. If American troops leave Iraq, the insurgents will go on the rampage and kill vast numbers of innocent people.
Instead of a few people being beheaded, tens of thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis will be beheaded. TV cameras will be there to cover the butchery, and the Tigris and Euphrates will be choked with dead bodies. The slaughter like that in Cambodia will continue for years, all civilized institutions in Iraq will be destroyed and tens of millions of Iraqi refugees will flee to neighboring countries. Eventually Iraq’s neighbors like Iran and Syria may invade leading to a brutal war.
The champions of human rights will have empowered the worst enemies of human rights and enabled them to do their worst. The blood in Iraq will be on the hands of America and of the human rights activists.
It’s time for those of us who believe in human rights to stop listening to these silly activists and start backing the real defenders of human rights in Iraq: the United States military. If not, then it’s time for the left to finally admit that they don’t care about human rights and end the silly charade of concern about human rights.
The US may or may not win in Iraq but if the peace movement and human rights activists get their way the real losers will be the Iraqi people. If America does pull out of Iraq, I hope the human rights and peace activists can be shipped over there to bury the bodies of all those headless Iraqis and see the results of their hypocrisy first hand.